I gasp, startle awake and sit up. Where am I?
It's predawn, I think. The room reeks of mildew. Or is it my tent? I can hear a dog barking not far off. The air is unbearably humid. It's hotter than hell.
Frantically racing to establish its bearings amid the fog of semi-consciousness, my mind flips through recent memories like pages in a picture book while my hands fumble for a flashlight. Scanning the room, a large calendar with a bikini-clad woman holding a bottle of beer hangs from a nail on the unpainted wall. Its text is in Portuguese--I must be in Brazil.
Disorientation gives way to self-awareness as an avalanche of information comes flooding back: I'm in the small town of Irati en route to Rio de Janeiro. My plan is to ride northeast for another month or so until I reach the mouth of the Amazon River. There, take a boat upstream to Manaus then ride north to Caracas, Venezuela. Fly to Miami and ride home.
But plans change. I'm needed at home sooner than expected and refuse to abandon this leg of the odyssey. So, I've decided to stash El Viento in Rio and fly back to Colorado for the North American summer. I ease back into the dream world as daylight slowly overtakes the horizon, pondering all I've witnessed during ten months on the road…
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, sapien platea morbi dolor lacus nunc, nunc ullamcorper. Felis aliquet egestas vitae, nibh ante quis quis dolor sed mauris. Erat lectus sem ut lobortis, adipiscing ligula eleifend, sodales fringilla mattis dui nullam. Ac massa aliquet.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, sapien platea morbi dolor lacus nunc, nunc ullamcorper. Felis aliquet egestas vitae, nibh ante quis quis dolor sed mauris. Erat lectus sem ut lobortis, adipiscing ligula eleifend, sodales fringilla mattis dui nullam. Ac massa aliquet.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, sapien platea morbi dolor lacus nunc, nunc ullamcorper. Felis aliquet egestas vitae, nibh ante quis quis dolor sed mauris. Erat lectus sem ut lobortis, adipiscing ligula eleifend, sodales fringilla mattis dui nullam. Ac massa aliquet.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, sapien platea morbi dolor lacus nunc, nunc ullamcorper. Felis aliquet egestas vitae, nibh ante quis quis dolor sed mauris. Erat lectus sem ut lobortis, adipiscing ligula eleifend, sodales fringilla mattis dui nullam. Ac massa aliquet.
Just because you believe it, doesn't mean it's true. --unknown
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The rest of this story is told during the Journey So Far Presentation
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